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Why Did The American Economy Collapse In 1929? Essay

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Why did the American economy collapse in 1929 and how did the Great Depression affect ordinary Americans?

The Wall Street Crash of the 1929, also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, The crash signaled the beginning of the 12-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries and that did not end in the United States until the onset of American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941. Everyone who brought stock in the mid-1929 and held onto them saw most of his or her adult life pass right by them, before getting back even.
The Roaring 20’s, the decade that lead up to the Crash, was a time of wealth and excess. Despite caution of the dangers of speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels. Before the crash, economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, ‘’Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.’’ The optimism and financial gains of the great bull market where shattered on ‘’Black Thursday’’, October 24, 1929, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) collapsed. Stock prices plummeted on that day, and continued to fall at an unprecedented rate for a full month. The 1929, crash came during a period of declining real estate values in the United States (which came up a round 1925) near the beginning of a chain of events that led to the Great Depression, a period of economic decline in the industrialized nations.
After a six year run the world saw an Industrial Average increase in value fivefold, prices peaked at 381.17 on September 3, 1929. The Crash then fell sharply for a month, losing 17% of its value on the initial leg down. Prices then recovered more than half of the losses over the next week, only to turn back down immediately afterward. The decline then accelerated into the so-called ‘’Black Thursday’’. A then-record number of 12.9...